KENYA: Journalists living in exile join calls for investigations into the high number of media killings in Somalia this year

Record ID: 362365

  • Title: KENYA: Journalists living in exile join calls for investigations into the high number of media killings in Somalia this year
  • Date: 28th September 2012
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF BADAR READING A PAPER
  • Embargoed: 13th October 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Communications
  • Reuters ID: LVACB06HFL0M9XDYPR6F9IS3UM0G
  • Story Text: Abdulkadir Omar Abdulle was once something of a celebrity in his home town Mogadishu. The 28-year-old journalist worked for Universal TV in Mogadishu and everyone in the neighbourhood was used to seeing his face on screen.
    Today he struggles to walk after being shot in the leg and stomach by masked gunmen who ambushed him at his home in July this year.
    "As I was sitting outside my house, two masked men came towards me, they took out guns and they shot at me. I ran away but as I was running they came after me and they shot me. I fell on the ground and people came to rescue me," he said.
    The unprovoked attack left him fighting for his life in a pool of his own blood on the pavement.
    "The first bullet hit me in the leg and it cut off my artery. There was a huge wound there and there was a lot of blood but doctors managed to cut the flow to save my life and now it is healing. The other bullet hit me in the stomach just here. It was very painful but the doctors managed to remove the bullet," he added.
    After getting death threats on his phone while he was receiving treatment in hospital friends of Abdulle managed to get him flown out of Somalia to neighbouring Kenya where he is living in exile.
    He considers himself one of the lucky ones.
    Many journalists say they have faced harassment from both sides when reporting the conflict between al Shabaab militants and Somali government forces.
    The scene of near unremitting conflict for the last 20 years, Somalia has made headlines as the scene of suicide bombings, street battles and pirate attacks on shipping.
    Better news has now emerged, with the rebirth of Mogadishu after Islamist rebel fighters retreated last year and this month's relatively smooth presidential election, the first to take place in the country in 45 years.
    The Committee to Protect Journalists says 42 journalists have been killed in the line of duty since 1992 in Somalia, 25 of who were murdered because of their reporting.
    Many other journalists have either survived attempts on their lives or been driven into hiding by death threats against them and their families.
    Muhadin Hassan Mohamed is another Somali journalist living in exile in Kenya. He used to be director of Radio Shabelle in Mogadishu.
    He was shot in the chest in March by masked gun men who chased him down the street. Three of his colleagues had already been hunted down and killed in the months before his attack but even then he says he couldn't believe people wanted to kill him.
    "What came into my head was why am I being targeted? These were young people and I am also young. I'm not a politician, I'm not a president, I'm not al Shabaab, I'm not the government. So I really felt panicked. I was afraid," he said.
    They want the new government to investigate the killings targeted at journalists and ensure that they are able to freely report in the country, without having to worry about their safety.
    Last week one journalist was shot in the head and three more were killed in twin suicide bomb attacks at a restaurant known to be frequented by politicians and the media.
    Witnesses of the attack told Reuters the suicide bombers shot two of the journalists in the chest before detonating their explosives.
    Somalia is the most dangerous place to work as a journalist in Africa according to the international watchdog, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
    But despite the very real dangers of reporting from a war zone, human rights organisations say journalists are being silenced by the killings in what they say is a crime against the freedom of speech. Human Rights Watch has called for investigations.
    "Very often what we are seeing is they are targeted killings of journalists so gun men basically going up to journalists and killing them on the spot. We've seen this time and again and its been up to 13 journalists that have been killed in 2012 alone and to date none of these killings have been investigated," said Laetitia Badar, researcher for Somalia at Human Rights Watch.
    She says that while al Shabaab are implicated in some of the killings, members of the recently replaced transitional government are also suspected of involvement making it even more pressing that a full investigation is carried out.
    In Nairobi exiled journalists have done their best to keep making news for people back home.
    Mohamed Garane works for Radio Ergo, a humanitarian show funded by the UN and broadcast daily in Somalia. He says he dreads picking up his phone in case it brings news that another colleague has died.
    But despite threats to his family back in Somalia because of his work he says he won't stop doing what he believes in.
    "We have to be very strong in terms of this difficult time because we don't want to surrender our profession, we don't want to surrender our pen to any body," he said.
    Garane and other exiles in Kenya are now trying to raise funds to support families of their fallen colleagues.
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